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Religion and the Making of Women's Alternative Space in Taiwan's Economic Restructuring

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Religion and the Making of Women's Alternative Space in Taiwan's Economic Restructuring City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research John Jay College of Criminal Justice 2008 Women of the Sisters' Hall: religion and the making of women's alternative space in Taiwan's economic restructuring Anru Lee John Jay College of Criminal Justice How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/jj_pubs/12 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] 1 Women of the Sisters' Hall: religion and the making of women's alternative space in Taiwan's economic restructuring To cite this Article: Lee, Anru (2008) ―Women of the Sisters' Hall: religion and the making of women's alternative space in Taiwan's economic restructuring,‖ Gender, Place & Culture, 15(4): 373-393. During the course of my research on labor and gender politics in Taiwan‘s recent economic restructuring, I came to know a group of middle-aged working-class women who were believers of I-Kuan Tao (Yiguan Dao), the Unity Way, ‗a syncretic, moralistic religion whose members practice vegetarianism and are led by charismatic masters‘ (Skoggard 1996, 157). Aged from early thirties to late fifties when I started collecting my data in the mid-1990s, these women lived together in the Sacred Heaven Fo-t‘ang (literally ‗Sacred Heaven Buddha Hall‘), an I-Kuan Tao temple in Homei, a small town in central Taiwan known for its history in textile production. By and large having decided to remain single but not sever ties with their natal families and communities, these women participated in daily social and economic activities (similar to the larger population in the area) while at the same time dedicating themselves to the study of religious teachings. Many of them were employed in local textile factories. These women did not completely reject the possibility of marriage; however, they were not actively pursuing it. Their understanding of women‘s roles in the Taiwanese patrilineal family led them to believe that a total separation from married life would give them the best chance to study the Tao, the virtuous way, thus saving them from the eternal suffering of reincarnation. This article is an ethnographic study of the subject formation of women at Sacred Heaven. It investigates two issues: the circumstances under which Sacred Heaven as an alternative social space for these women was enabled and accepted, and the impact that this alternative space had on the individuals involved as well as on the people around them. I contend that three interlocking factors are particularly important to the understanding of these women‘s experience: cultural (i.e., the Taiwanese patrilineal family), religious (i.e., I-Kuan Tao), and economic (i.e., Taiwan‘s post-World War II export-oriented industrialization and its recent economic restructuring). I-Kuan Tao presented an opportunity for self-realization to these women who would otherwise be relegated to a secondary role in the Taiwanese family. The same gender hierarchy in the family, however, also served as an ideological base that facilitated 2 the hiring of these women as cheap industrial labor when they were young. Their early working experience, in turn, might have motivated them later in life to seek a different path from the traditional role of women within I-Kuan Tao. Yet it was also Taiwanese industrial producers‘ persistent need for cheap female labor in the recent economic restructuring that continued to give these women employment opportunities upon which they could support themselves economically while attempting to change their lives by staying single. All of these factors thus provided members of Sacred Heaven with multiple yet often conflicting conditions in which they could – and had to – negotiate their lives. The story of women at Sacred Heaven exemplifies a culturally specific pattern of resistance. Paradoxically, while trying to establish an alternative social space, they were also seeking cultural legitimacy for their choice. Marriage resistance, in this case, was an act of both transgression and conformity. Power and resistance hence form a dyad; they cannot be understood separately. Yet, the different readings that these women and their families applied to their situations, as well as the ingenuous ways through which they solved their predicaments, also added new elements to the cultural repertoire which, collectively considered, may broaden the range of options for future Taiwanese women who attempt a similar life trajectory. In this article, I therefore caution against a totalizing understanding of the concept of resistance based on its final result, but call for a more nuanced analysis focusing on the process instead. Methodology Homei is a small town of approximately 90,000 residents in central Taiwan well known for its history in weaving production since the end of the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945). The development of Homei‘s textile industry after World War II reflects closely the path of Taiwan‘s economic development in the postwar era, which in a short span of four decades experienced import-substitution industrialization (ISI) in the 1950s and early 1960s, export-oriented industrialization (EOI) in the late 1960s and 1970s, the status of one of the world‘s manufacturing powerhouses in the 1980s, and economic restructuring (namely capital outflow and deindustrialization) starting from the late 1980s (Lee 2004). As a sign of this recent wave of economic restructuring, only half the number of looms in use during the late 1980s remained in production in the mid-1990s. I was first introduced to Sacred Heaven by Ch‘un-mei, a textile worker who was herself an inhabitant while I was doing research on the impact of the economic restructuring on the local economy and society of Homei (September 1993–December 1995).1 My primary focus then was on the work experience of female textile workers including those at Sacred Heaven. I lived 3 at the dormitory of a local textile factory, but visited the fo-t‘ang frequently on weekends and occasionally at night, became acquainted with most of its regular residents, and gradually learned about their lives. More intensive study, with an emphasis on the connection between religion and other aspects of these women‘s lives, was conducted in the summers of the early 2000s, when I took residence at Sacred Heaven and participated in the daily routines of its members as well as some of their religious activities (some of the religious functions were reserved exclusively for I-Kuan Tao followers and not open to non-converts like myself). I also visited the workplaces and families of a few of them. My knowledge about the women at Sacred Heaven is derived mainly from ethnographic fieldwork, namely participant observation and the everyday chats and conversations I had with them. Additional insight was gained from meeting and talking with other I-Kuan Tao believers, either through the introduction of Sacred Heaven members or other individuals, during my decade-long research in Homei and elsewhere in Taiwan. In addition, I conducted formal interviews with a few local I-Kuan Tao leaders and fo-t‘ang t‘ang-chus,2 as well as some I-Kuan Tao leaders based in Taipei, to obtain an understanding of the larger religious context within which Sacred Heaven is embedded. Theoretical context My point of departure lies as much with the question of why women of Sacred Heaven deviate from the ideal of Chinese kinship and family as with what this pattern of deviation teaches us about the strength and weaknesses of Chinese culture. Their behavior informs us not only about the forms of resistance but also the forms of power in Chinese societies (see Abu-Lughod 1990). It is an indicator and diagnostic of power (Cresswell 2000). Marriage has been nearly universal to both men and women in Chinese societies including Taiwan (Adrian 2003; Jones 2005; Thornton and Lin 1994). Marriage as a social institution is particularly significant to women, for it serves as both a symbol of and gateway to their ultimate (though subordinate) position in the Chinese kinship system (M. Wolf 1960, 1972). Unmarried females are viewed as temporary members of their natal families. It is only through marriage that a woman is accepted into her husband‘s family and permanently integrated into a lineal line (Freedman 1979; Hsu 1971; Wolf and Huang 1980). It is also through marriage that a woman earns a rightful place in her husband‘s ancestral hall in the afterlife (Ahern 1971; Harrell 1986). Marriage also provides the opportunity for men and women to perpetuate the family line through childbearing; failure to do so is considered in Chinese culture as a serious breach of filial piety even today (Thornton and Lin 1994, 202; also see Hsu 1971; Simon 2004). Economically, marriage also grants especially women some financial support and social security as men continue to be seen and act as primary breadwinners in contemporary Taiwanese households. Refusal or delay of marriage – or simply 4 the lack of enthusiasm about it – is therefore a major decision and oftentimes a strategy for women who struggle to negotiate a life trajectory other than the culturally prescribed roles of wife, mother and daughter-in-law. Unsurprisingly, women of Sacred Heaven constitute a small group of people. They are a minority not only in larger society but also within the I-Kuan Tao community, although there has been a gradual increase in the non-marriage rate among Taiwanese women in the past two decades.3 The significance of the women of Sacred Heaven, therefore, is not based on their numbers but on the ways they reveal the cultural logic and socioeconomic dynamics currently at work in Taiwan.
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